'I want to fight for my kids': Mom, facing felony child injury charges, testifies at hearing

Content Warning: This article discusses domestic violence. If you are in distress and need someone to talk to, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.

TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — A mother accused of confining her daughter in a closet for extended periods testified at a court hearing Tuesday, after which a judge granted a motion from the Travis County District Attorney's Office to increase her bond.

As of Wednesday morning, Virginia Gonzales faced two first-degree felony counts of injury to a child inflicting serious injury, one third-degree felony count of injury to a child, and one third-degree felony count of unlawful restraint.

Defense attorney Jesus Gabriel Hernandez represented Gonzales in the case Tuesday. He declined to comment following the hearing.

Inside the courtroom

The hearing was held in the 331st Criminal District Court, presided over by Judge Chantal Eldridge. It was held before a nearly empty gallery -- KXAN was there, along with a man unrelated to the case. It began around 12:25 p.m. Tuesday and lasted around two hours.

The Travis County District Attorney's Office filed a motion in June that asked a judge to raise Gonzales' bond. At the time, Gonzales was held on a $75,000 bond.

To explain, a bond isn't a punishment -- our legal system holds that defendants are innocent until proven guilty. Rather, it's a tool to ensure a defendant will show up for criminal proceedings. Judges weigh the severity of a defendant's criminal charges against that defendant's means, contacts and history with the criminal justice system, to decide flight risk.

Prosecutors argued that she presented a flight risk and that her previous bond wasn't enough. However, the defense argued that prosecutors overreached on their charges, acting on unfiled criminal charges and unfounded information about Gonzales.

Five people testified at the hearing. Prosecutors called two Austin Police detectives and Gonzales' mother to the stand, while Hernandez called Gonzales and an acquaintance of the defendant.

Lead detective describes child's condition

In April, APD officers responded to a 911 caller who was at Gonzales' apartment, a two-bedroom and two-bathroom unit. They found one of Gonzales' daughters inside a closet that had boxes stacked in front of it, which KXAN previously reported, police said.

APD Child Abuse Unit detective Ryan Constable testified that the 7-year-old child was severely emaciated and malnourished, only weighing 29 pounds.

"The fat in her cheeks was nonexistent," he said. "Her body had used those stores to sustain itself."

Constable claimed Gonzales allegedly admitted to putting her daughter in the closet for extended periods -- hours, potentially up to days and weeks. He also testified to the condition of the closet. Later in the hearing, Gonzales denied the claim about "days and weeks."

Eldridge asked Constable about the food provided to the girl. He responded that witnesses said Gonzales allegedly only fed the child a corndog and half a cup of water each day as a form of punishment.

"To my knowledge, I had adequate food for everyone in the home," said Gonzales during her testimony.

Hernandez asked Constable about the child's current condition and where Gonzales' children had been placed. Constable said the daughter was recovering well and spoke to the current locations of the children.

The investigation included accessing phones seized from Gonzales' apartment. Text messages from the phone were not available to the magistrate judge who set Gonzales' bond. In his testimony, Constable described texts from one of the phones to her sons.

"Clean the closet and then throw her back in," he said about one of the texts.

"I instructed them not to let her out of the [bed]room but not the closet," said Gonzales later in the hearing. "We'd catch her in the restroom doing something bad. It was easier for [my sons] to watch her that way."

APD Detective: Missing child could be homicide case

Lingering in this case's shadow is another -- the disappearance of Ava Marie Gonzales, 9, one of Gonzales' children. She was last seen as an infant in 2017, according to the Austin Police Department.

Prosecutors called APD Missing Persons & Cold Cases detective Amanda Lewis to testify on Ava's case. According to her, relatives last saw Ava in December 2017. The last known photo of Ava was taken around that time.

Ava lived with her relatives at the time, Lewis said, but Gonzales brought her back to a hotel room. That room was where Gonzales briefly lived with her kids. Lewis related what Gonzales' oldest child, now 15, told detectives he remembered about that time.

"How do I phrase this?" said Lewis, pausing for a moment. "[Gonzales] was last seen handling the child very violently in a bathtub, then put her in a car seat."

Hernandez pushed back on this, noting that the boy would have been around 7 years old.

"I was never violent with any of them, I never spanked them, nothing," said Gonzales during her testimony.

Lewis also testified during the prosecution's examination that her investigation was "leading us towards a murder case." On cross-examination, Hernandez and Lewis engaged in a brief back-and-forth on that statement.

"Do you have any evidence the child is dead?" Hernandez asked.

"We don't have any evidence that she is alive," Lewis said. Hernandez responded that that wasn't his question.

"We are investigating it as a homicide investigation," Lewis responded. APD has not charged, nor has a grand jury indicted, Gonzales with homicide.

Later in the hearing, Gonzales testified that she did not kill her daughter.

Virginia Gonzales' mother: 'I know my daughter, she'll run'

At the time of writing, Virginia Gonzales has not been convicted of any crime. Prosecutors alleged a prior instance of failure to appear in Washington County court on a misdemeanor possession of marijuana charge. They argued that this presented a history of evasion.

Constable and Lewis both claimed they viewed Virginia Gonzales as having a flight risk because of that. The prosecution also said in its motion that Virginia Gonzales had contacts in Mexico who are involved with human trafficking.

Prosecutors called Virginia Gonzales' mother, Valerie Gonzales, to the stand to help them build that argument. She shot a hostile glare at he daughter as she took the stand. Valerie Gonzales had raised Virginia Gonzales beginning when the latter was 13.

"She didn't show up for a weed charge, you think she's going to show up for this?" Valerie Gonzales said. "I know my daughter, she'll run from this."

Hernandez asked Valerie Gonzales to testify to her criminal history. She told the court about her prior felony convictions; she served five years for drug possession and a year and a half for human trafficking.

"I'm pretty sure she has contact with the people I used to work for in Mexico, when I did human smuggling," she said.

Virginia Gonzales testified that her only contact with said group was a call telling her that Valerie Gonzales had been arrested for human trafficking.

Virginia Gonzales testifies: 'She's in Mexico with her dad'

Early in his questioning of Virginia Gonzales, Hernandez asked her to tell the court how many children she's had: Nine kids from at least six men. At the time of Virginia Gonzales' arrest, Ava had been missing and another daughter was given up for adoption.

In total, seven children lived in Virginia Gonzales' apartment in 2025.

But in 2018, after being kicked out of the aforementioned hotel, Virginia Gonzales and her kids lived in her car. She testified that a man named "Saul Jimenez" took Ava during that time.

Earlier, Lewis testified that Virginia Gonzales had identified Jimenez to detectives as Ava's father, said he lived on Rutland Drive and had Ava with him. Lewis said detectives interviewed a Saul Jimenez who lived on that road. He did not have Ava, Lewis said.

However, Virginia Gonzales testified that detectives interviewed the wrong man -- someone with the same name, living on the same road. She instead claimed Jimenez, a Mexican national, had been deported to Mexico in 2018. She also testified that Jimenez's sister took her daughter, a U.S. citizen, with her to Mexico.

"You let this man take your child?" Eldridge asked her.

Virginia Gonzales responded that since none of the kids were in school, she would have lost custody anyway. He was also one of several men whom she told; she testified that she told multiple men so she could ask them for money.

The prosecution asked if she tried to contact him or had someone else try to contact him. She replied that she had no way to contact Jimenez or his family; the two met at a bar and hooked up for only a "couple of weeks."

As to her other daughter, Virginia Gonzales said she didn't deny what detectives showed her about the child's condition. She didn't dispute that her daughter had been put into a closet, but denied Constable's claims that she had been in there for days. She testified to her own culpability and said she neglected her responsibilities.

"I don't dispute that I was in the wrong," Virginia Gonzales said. "I know what I've done was wrong."

However, she said that she wanted to do whatever the state asked to keep her kids.

"I want to fight for my kids. I'm ready to do whatever I need to keep my children in my life," she said.

Closing Statements

The last testimony of the hearing came from a woman named Yvette, an acquaintance of Virginia's. She said that there was plenty of food at the apartment and that she last saw Virginia Gonzales' 7-year-old playing on a tablet. Prosecutors did not have any questions for her.

In their closing statement, prosecutors noted that Virginia Gonzales "had admitted" to the charges and that testimony supported a bond increase. They also highlighted the potential of a murder charge and that Virginia Gonzales hadn't attempted to find Ava. Texas law requires a body or remains in order to actually bring a homicide charge, however.

In his closing, Hernandez said that keeping her confined would prevent her from complying with requirements set by Child Protective Services.

"Bail is to secure a defendant," he said. "She's going to fight to stay in her kids' lives. She can't work to improve while in jail. She will lose her chance ... this will deprive her of her parental rights."

Eldridge granted the prosecution's motion.

"It is absolutely horrifying that she had three girls and this happened to them," the judge said. "You want me to release her to preserve her parental rights?"

According to Texas law, parental rights include "the right to have physical possession, to direct the moral and religious training, and to designate the residence of the child." It has become a buzzword in modern politics, particularly in debates about limiting what schools can teach children.

An arraignment was held immediately after the judge's ruling. Virginia Gonzales pled not guilty to all charges. Her case is now scheduled for the January 2026 trial docket.